The Frame

Category: Film Page 81 of 101

Oscar Predictions

By

On February 20, 2008

In Film

The Oscars are four days away, and I figure it’s about time I throw some predictions out there. Also, I don’t want the entire front page of the blog to be all American Idol posts, so I had to post about something else.

Best Actor

The Oscar will go to: Daniel Day-Lewis. He’s the odds-on favorite, it’s a showy performance, and Oscar loves showy performances.

My pick: not Daniel Day-Lewis. I don’t like showy performances. I haven’t seen In the Valley of Elah or Michael Clayton, so I might go with Viggo. He acts with his eyes.

Best Actress

The Oscar will go to: Julie Christie. It’s something of a close race between Christie and Marion Cotillard. I haven’t seen La Vie en Rose, but I predict the Academy will go with the classic Brit playing the Alzheimer’s patient rather than the newcomer in a French film. The Academy is nothing if not xenophobic.

My pick: Julie Christie. Xenophobia or no, Christie is simply luminous in this film. And, like I said, haven’t seen the other. I’m really glad Ellen Page got nominated, because she’s incredible, but not ready for a win yet.

Best Supporting Actor

The Oscar will go to: Javier Bardem. Another one that everyone seems fairly agreed about, though the Supporting Actor category is one in which Oscar often likes to be contrary. I think I’d put up Tom Wilkinson or Hal Holbrook for wild cards, then, even though I haven’t seen the films–often the contrarian Oscar voters pick an old guy in here.

My pick: Javier Bardem. But I haven’t seen any of the other films. My non-nominated backup would be Paul Dano in There Will Be Blood.

Best Supporting Actress

The Oscar will go to: Amy Ryan. It’s probably between her and Cate Blanchett, and I’m really not sure who will win. I’m predicting Ryan, though, because in the supporting categories Oscar likes either newcomers (Ryan’s not “new,” but she broke through in public consciousness with this role) or older performers who haven’t won before. That could give Ruby Dee an edge, but since I hadn’t heard about her at all until the nomination, she probably doesn’t have enough buzz. It could also give Ronan a boost, but I suspect she’s still too young, and that Atonement has exhausted its hype.

My pick: This category is too close for me to be willing to pick without having seen the rest of the films. Tilda Swinton in particular is usually incredible, and I’d definitely need to see Michael Clayton and I’m Not There before choosing, because my gut feeling is to give it to her or Blanchett. I have seen Gone Baby Gone, and I personally wouldn’t give it to Amy Ryan, because the performance verged on histrionic to me (partially the character, I know).

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Oscar will go to: No Country for Old Men. Although I’d think Atonement has a very good chance as well, since the book is so acclaimed. Or it could be a chance for TWBB to jump in, and I wouldn’t mind. Since I’m shutting it out everywhere else. (As you’ll probably notice, I didn’t like it very much; I’m hoping to get my January recap up soon, and then you’ll see.)

My pick: No Country for Old Men. I haven’t read the book in its entirety, but my friend who is writing her dissertation on Cormac McCarthy says that they stuck very close to the book and the things they did change made it better. That’s about as great an endorsement as an adapted screenplay could receive.

Best Original Screenplay

The Oscar will go to: Juno. I think it’s pretty much a lock at this point; it won’t win Picture, Actress, or Director, and the Academy will want to recognize it somewhere after its runaway success. Since its screenplay is the most touted thing about it, this is the obvious award for it to win.

My pick: Juno. It’s a bit too clever for its own good, but the only other one of these I’ve seen is Ratatouille. I’m curious to compare it to The Savages, though, which I suspect would give Juno a run for my vote if I had seen it.

Best Director

The Oscar will go to: Joel and Ethan Coen. Because director and picture usually go together, and I’m hoping so hard for a NCFOM win. :)

My pick: Joel and Ethan Coen. No only is NCFOM amazing, they deserve one in general. I’m really glad for Schnabel’s nomination though, and I would sort of be secretly thrilled if he won. As long is it didn’t indicate a no-win for NCFOM, of course.

Best Foreign Language Film

The Oscar will go to: The Counterfeiters. This is the only one of these films I’d even heard of before the nominations, so it’s likely to have more buzz than the others to help push it over the edge.

My pick: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. No, it’s not nominated. Which is such a total travesty that I am again boycotting the Foreign Language award. (Oh, and that’s leaving out The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which wasn’t eligible under current [stupid] Academy rules; if it were, I’d pick that with 4 Months a close second.)

Best Picture

The Oscar will go to: No Country for Old Men. There Will Be Blood had a surge of buzz a few weeks ago, but most people seem to be backing NCFOM now, which makes me very happy. Then there’s the possibility that they will split the “dark side of humanity” vote and leave room for Atonement or even Juno to pop in, but I don’t really think that will happen.

My pick: No Country for Old Men. It’s such a perfect application of cinematic filmmaking to a dark and ambiguous story.

more categories after the jump

Read More

Film Criticism – Emotional or Analytical?

By

On February 6, 2008

In Film

Jim Emerson has an intriguing post up on his scaners::blog about whether film criticism can be or even should be objective. I’m somewhere in the middle on the issue; like many of the commenters (read the comments, too; a lot of the good discussions is down there), I usually find Roger Ebert’s reviews too high on emotional response, and I have the same problem with Pauline Kael. (The analytical side is apparently covered by J. Hoberman, who I haven’t read enough to comment on myself; and to be fair to Ebert, his essays on criticism itself and on older films are quite good–it’s only the reviews of new films that tend to bother me.) On the other hand, the more I write about film the more I realize that what’s really important to me is the experience of watching the film, often even more than what the film made me think about. The experiential nature of film is largely what Emerson points out in his original post.

I’ve had a couple of people in the last few months mention that they watched a film because I praised it and they didn’t care for it the way I did. I’m sorry about that, but I think it comes down again to the experience. Quoting one of Emerson’s footnotes: “The best reviewers (who may or may not also be critics) share their insights and perspectives on a film so that the reader gets an idea of what they experienced — which is not the same as saying the reader should expect to have an identical one.” I would hardly put myself into the category of “best reviewers,” and I know that those particular reviews were written hurriedly, but this strikes me as exactly right. The best that I can do as a reviewer/critic is tell the experience I had watching the film, acknowledge that it was my experience (colored by my background and personality, as well as perhaps the conditions surrounding my watching of the film)–I can’t guarantee that anyone else would have the same experience, and wouldn’t necessarily want them to. Though I don’t think criticism should be reduced to “this is how the film made me feel,” because some standards of quality DO exist and some analysis of how the film achieves its experiential power is helpful, you can never take the personal out of it. That’s why I dislike critics who try to pretend they aren’t personally involved and thus biased to some degree.

I don’t have much more to say, other than it’s a good post and discussion and you should read it, and then you should add Emerson’s blog to your feedreader, because his blog is uniformly excellent.

FB100: #95 – Run Lola Run

By

On February 1, 2008

In Film

This post is part of a project to watch the Film Bloggers’ 100 Favorite Non-English Films. See my progress here.

Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt)
Germany 1998; dir: Tom Tykwer
starring: Franka Potente, Moritz Bliebtreu
screened 1/28/08, DVD

“I wish I was a heartbeat that never comes to rest.”

Previous Viewing Experience: Oh, golly. This will be the fifth time I’ve seen this film. Guess you know I like it, eh? (Although I’ve seen Citizen Kane as many times, and I don’t particularly like it…)

Knowledge Before Viewing: This is one of my all-time favorite films, but I haven’t really written anything about it. So it’ll be interesting to see it with the intention of writing about it. The response will still likely be “OMG, I love this movie so much!!!!11!” Oh well. I honestly can’t remember what I’d heard about it before watching it the first time, or what my expectations were. But I’m sure they were exceeded.

Previous Reactions: I’ve never reviewed it before, but my rating on it is “Superior,” no question. It’s number 3 on my Best Films of 1999 list (it opened in the US in 1999, though it released in Germany in ’98), and 1999 was a VERY good year for movies. Run Lola Run is one of two foreign films I use to bait people who say they don’t like foreign films (the other is Amelie, at #92 on this list). So far I’ve never shown it to anyone who didn’t love it; it taps into the MTV generation’s love of quick editing and techno-rock music (one of the best soundtracks to drive to, by the way), but also manages a surprising amount of depth in both story and narrative technique. I’m just glad to have an excuse to watch it again. :)

Brief Synopsis: Lola’s boyfriend Manni has lost a bag containing 100,000 marks which belongs to a local crime lord; she has twenty minutes to somehow get enough money to bail him out of the situation. Her attempt to get the money is repeated three times, with slight variations.

Response: Have I mentioned that I love this movie? Yeah, still do. On a philosophic level, it’s a fascinating inquiry into the nature of time, the efficacy of human action, and the mutability of fate. Each time through, there are slight differences: the first time, Lola might nearly run into a woman with a baby stroller, the second time, she does run into her. We’re shown in a rapid series of stills what happens to the woman afterwards: the first time, she loses her child to child services and steals another, the second she wins the lottery. There are several of these “and then” sequences for various people Lola encounters, and each one shows a different outcome. It’s tempting to imagine a cause-effect relation between Lola’s encounters with them and their futures, but I’m not sure that’s right; these are coincidental moments of little or no consequence–it could be a case of the butterfly effect (small actions have large consequences and the slight changes lead to radically different ends), but I think it’s simply that each person has a multitude of possible futures, and the film doesn’t necessarily comment on the degree of interrelation between chance and human action. It’s definitely a postmodern film, and the idea of multiple branching futures is found in a lot of postmodern narratives–compare it to certain sections of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and If on a winter’s night a traveler, for example, or Jorge Luis Borges’s Labyrinths.


[This video is of the third time through the sequence]

The idea of multiple futures is backed up obviously by the tripartite structure, in which the first two attempts to save Manni fail, and Lola decides to try again–and does! The opening sequence, before we meet Manni and Lola, suggests that we’re playing a game which, like football (er, soccer), has established rules–the ball is round, the game lasts ninety minutes. Those are the constraints we’re given in the world we’re about to enter. But Lola doesn’t play by the established rules. And neither does this film, in all the best ways. Stylistically, Tykwer pulls every trick he can find: There are animated segments (which are just cool anyway, but also highlight the constructedness and artificiality of the story we’re watching), black and white sections, nearly frame-by-frame montages, long tracking shots, interspersed stills, jump cuts, handheld shots, split-screen (eat your heart out, 24), you name it. You’d think with all that he wouldn’t have time for much else, but there’s an entire subplot about Lola’s father and his mistress which surprises me every time with its depth, despite its sum total of probably four minutes on screen.

And there’s so much more I could probably talk about, but those are the main things that impress me every time. It’s just so enjoyable to watch, so well-structured as a narrative, and so fascinating as a philosophical exercise–and there are so few movies that manage to be all three, and in less than 90 minutes, too.

(Since I’ve seen this many times before, I opted not to include two responses; the response above can be considered a reflective response as well as an immediately-after-viewing response.)

Picspam!: Haven’t been able to do this on the last several, because I can’t screencap videos. Yay for DVDs! And movies I want to take the time to screencap.

TCM’s Annual Schedule of Wealth

By

On February 1, 2008

In Film

Today Turner Classic Movies starts their annual “31 Days of Oscar” programming; every movie they play throughout the month of February is an Oscar-winner or nominee. They interpret that broadly, including stuff that was nominated, for, like Best Musical Direction in 1937. But still, the ratio of great film to B-movie programmers is even higher this month than usual. And me being me, I made a recommendation list. Set your DVRs. I know mine is going to be overloaded. I’ve mostly recommended things that I’ve seen, but there are lots more that are probably good, so check out the whole schedule. I bolded ones I really, really recommend.

And there’s no repeats that I could tell! Times are in Central Standard Time, because that’s where I am and I’m ego-centric.

Friday 1st

5:00 am – The Adventures of Robin Hood – Still stands as one of the greatest adventure movies ever made. Plus, gorgeous early Technicolor.
10:30 am – The Treasure of the Sierra Madre – Quite probably Humphrey Bogart’s best role, as a blind-with-greed prospector. Crackling.
7:00 pm – Jaws – Spielberg proves his mastery of suspense timing. Forget the animatronic shark. Focus on the editing.
11:15 pm – Network – I haven’t seen this in forever, so it’s going on my DVR for a rewatch.

Saturday 2nd

8:15 am – Forbidden Planet – Haven’t seen this one at all, but it’s the science fiction version of The Tempest. Come on!

Sunday 3rd

9:30 am – The Harvey Girls – Okay, this is perhaps a guilty pleasure. But I love the old west and I love Judy Garland and I love trains. And this is an admittedly slight but still enjoyable musical combining those things.
11:15 am – The Band Wagon – This, on the other hand, is one of the greatest musicals ever made. Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse. Don’t really need to say more.
1:15 pm – Seven Brides for Seven Brothers – And another great one here, which if you haven’t seen, I’d be very surprised.
3:00 pm – Gigi – A musical that’s a bit more on the adult side, dealing with mistresses and whatnot. Speaking of mistresses, why isn’t TCM playing Cabaret? I just noticed that. Wow.
5:00 pm – An American in Paris – Not as good as Singin’ in the Rain, but this is the one that won the Oscar. Go figure.
7:00pm – Sense and Sensibility – Off musicals, onto Jane Austen. This is the Emma Thompson version, which is really good, and really sparked off the late-1990s Austen mania.

Monday 4th

9:30 pm – Sunrise – OMG, I am so excited about this! Sunrise shared the first Best Picture Oscar (sort of), and is widely regarded as one of the best silent films ever, and it’s incredibly hard to find. I’ve never seen it, so I’m pumped.

Tuesday 5th

11:15 am – The 400 Blows – One of my all-time favorite films, Francois Truffaut’s debut film which set off the French New Wave. It’s truly wonderful; don’t miss it.
7:00 pm – The Best Years of Our Lives – A really good look at the lives of the men returning home after WWII.

Wednesday 6th

12:00MID – Casablanca – I don’t need to say anything about this, right? Good.
1:45 am – Rebecca – Hitchcock’s first American film; not one of my favorites, but still quite good.
1:00 pm – Libeled Lady – It’s been so long since I’ve seen this…but I remember loving it. And with a cast including Spencer Tracy, Jean Harlow, William Powell, and Myrna Loy, all running around acting screwbally, how could you not?
2:45 pm – Citizen Kane – AFI calls it the greatest American movie ever made. It’s certainly one of the best at any rate.
4:45 pm – Foreign Correspondent – This is a lesser-known Hitchcock film, but it’s a hidden gem.
7:00 pm – Vertigo – This is a really well-known Hitchcock film, and it deserves every accolade it’s ever been granted.
9:15 pm – Rear Window – This is certainly my favorite Hitchcock film, and is probably my all-time favorite film period.

Thursday 7th

7:00 pm – 2001: A Space Odyssey – Kubrick’s masterpiece, probably; a bit slow-moving, but totally mind-bending.

Friday 8th

12:30 am – Easy Rider – I actually just saw this for the first time a few weeks ago, and I was really impressed. It’s the prototype for American indie films, road films, etc.
11:00 am – Mildred Pierce – One of the films that has convinced me of the great value of melodrama. Joan Crawford gives the performance of her life, and her supporting cast does so admirably.
1:00 pm – Grand Hotel – One of the first great ensemble films, pulling together most of MGM’s big names, including Greta Garbo, John and Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Joan Crawford, and I don’t know who all else.

Saturday 9th

12:15 am – Apocalypse Now – I’m ashamed to say I haven’t seen Coppola’s Vietnam-inflected version of Heart of Darkness, but this is my chance to rectify that.
9:00 am – Topper – Absolutely delightful screwballish comedy about a middle-aged man and the beautiful ghost who prods him into doing crazy things.
7:00 pm – Who Framed Roger Rabbit – Remember Robert Zemeckis when he mixed live action and animation like this, instead of by putting them on top of each other in weird and unnatural ways? Yeah…

Sunday 10th

12:45 am – Dead Poets Society – This great-teacher story gets slammed in film circles a lot for being maudlin, but I don’t care. I love it. And my friend teaches at the boarding school where it was filmed, and I am very jealous of her.
3:00 am – Au revoir, les enfants – Haunting French film of a boys school in the 1940s which takes in a couple of German students–one of whom turns out to be Jewish.
10:30 am – Spellbound – You know I have to put all of Hitchcock’s film on this recommended list? Okay, just so we’re clear. This is the one where Ingrid Bergman plays psychologist to Gregory Peck, who has dreams designed by Salvador Dali.
12:30 pm – The Maltese Falcon – One of the first films noirs, and one of the definitive hard-boiled detective films, with a star-making turn by Humphrey Bogart.
2:15 pm – Murder on the Orient Express – An incredible ensemble cast takes on one of Agatha Christie’s best detective stories.
4:30pm – Sleuth (1972) – Laurence Olivier vs. Michael Caine, tricking each other back and forth for the love of a woman. Really great stuff.
7:00pm – The Nightmare Before Christmas – Tim Burton! And stop-motion animation! And Jack Skellington! Why don’t I own this movie again?

Monday 11th

12:00MID – Silence of the Lambs – Probably the greatest serial killer movie ever made. It’s brilliant on every level.
2:15 am – Se7en – A very good serial killer movie. ;)
7:30 am – The Great Dictator – Charlie Chaplin speaks. And plays Hitler. And a Jewish Hitler-lookalike. Daring satire, from one of the greatest comedians of all time.
2:30 pm – Mr. Smith Goes to Washington – James Stewart as the bright-eyed, greenhorn senator tasked with reminding us what America’s all about. One of Frank Capra’s best films.
7:00 pm – It Happened One Night – And Frank Capra in a much less Capra-corny mood, with one of the greatest screwball comedies ever.
9:00 pm – Mr. Deeds Goes to Town – Back to Capra-corn, but whimsically wonderful, with Gary Cooper standing in for the American everyman this time.
11:00 pm – The Awful Truth – Possibly the actual greatest screwball comedy, with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne divorcing, driving each other crazy-jealous, and then realizing they really love each other.

Tuesday 12th

2:45 pm – The Apartment – Billy Wilder was one of the more consistent directors throughout the ’40s and ’50s, and moved with remarkable ease between most of the established genres; The Apartment is one of his best.
9:30 pm – The Red Shoes – The famous story of the ballerina who couldn’t stop dancing is brought to gorgeous and tragic life.

Wednesday 13th

1:45 am – Yankee Doodle Dandy – James Cagney is best known for his gangster parts, but he was also a song-and-dance man, which was put to tremendous use as he plays Broadway legend George M. Cohan.
4:00 am – Brief Encounter – Quiet romance displays all the best that British film of the 1940s had to offer.
11:15 am – My Favorite Wife – Wouldn’t you know that the very day you have your wife declared legally dead seven years after her ship wrecked and marry again, she’d turn up? Yep, that’s what Irene Dunne does to Cary Grant in this screwball farce.
7:00 pm – The Quiet Man – One of the greatest John Ford-John Wayne-Maureen O’Hara is neither a western nor a war film, but this tender Irish romance which was ROBBED of Best Picture by the overblown Greatest Show on Earth. For shame.
9:15 pm – Roman Holiday – If all this film did was introduce Audrey Hepburn to the world, it would be great. Thankfully, it’s also a great film on its own.

Thursday 14th

4:30 am – Written on the Wind – Melodrama might not be your thing, but check this one out before you write them off. If nothing else, it has the best mise-en=scene I’ve ever seen.
5:00 pm – Kiss Me Kate – The Taming of the Shrew. With Cole Porter songs. And parallel on-stage/off-stage stories.

Friday 15th

12:15 am – My Fair Lady – Oh, you’ve all seen this, right?
7:00 am – The Circus – One of Chaplin’s last fully silent films; a bit of a lesser Chaplin, but still well worthwhile.
11:15 am – A Day at the Races – The Marx Brothers made three masterpieces. This is the only one TCM is playing this month. So see it. (The other two are Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera, just fyi.)
5:00 pm – Tootsie – Dustin Hoffman can’t get work as an actor–but he can as an actress! One of the best cross-dressing stories ever.

Saturday 16th

1:15 am – Nashville – I haven’t seen this one yet, but I’m working on seeing more Altman films, and this one is supposed to be one of his best.
8:30 am – The Lion in Winter – Kate Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine, Peter O’Toole as Henry II. Two great actors portraying one of the most dynamic royal couples in British history. Great stuff.

Sunday 17th

12:00 pm – True Grit – John Wayne earned his Oscar for this film which I haven’t yet seen.
4:30 pm – They Were Expendable – Ford and Wayne lead the way in one of the best contemporary WWII films, about u-boats in the Pacific.

Monday 18th

12:00MID – L.A. Confidential – AKA the film that should have won Best Picture in 1997. Neo-noir at its very finest.
7:00 pm – Gone With the Wind – No introduction necessary.
11:00 pm – Wuthering Heights (1939) – 1939 was one of film’s greatest years, and this well-done version of Emily Bronte’s gothic romance.

Tuesday 19th

7:00 pm – The Ox-Bow Incident – This film is highly regarded in many circles, but it doesn’t seem to get the popular attention it deserves; it’s a western, but one extraordinarily driven by moral dilemmas.

Wednesday 20th

4:15 am – Mrs. Miniver – The epitome of the WWII home front film, as Greer Garson holds her London family together during the Blitz.
3:00 pm – Ninotchka – Garbo laughs! But not a lot, not till the end, because she’s a Communist and laughing would be frivolous; until she meets Melvyn Douglas on an assignment in Paris and suddenly Western life starts looking pretty good.
5:00 pm – One, Two, Three – Billy Wilder directs James Cagney in fast-talking near mania as a Coca-Cola manager in Berlin tasked with keeping tabs on the boss’s daughter. This comedy moves at breakneck speed; not Wilder’s best, but highly enjoyable.
7:00 pm – Some Like It Hot – This is Wilder’s best. Or Double Indemnity. I can never decide. Come on, gangsters, cross-dressing musicians, Marilyn Monroe, what more do you want?
9:15 pm – Stalag 17 – Wilder’s take on POW camps, starring William Holden; I haven’t seen this one, but I’ve been meaning to for a long time.
11:30 pm – The Caine Mutiny – There’s four way to do things: the right way, the wrong way, the navy way, and Capt. Queeg’s way. When Queeg is Humphrey Bogart, guess which way you should pick? One of Bogart’s best late roles.

Thursday 21st

4:00 am – On the Waterfront – Marlon Brando, yada yada yada. Someday I’m going to learn to appreciate method acting, but until that day, you watch this film and tell me how amazing it is.
6:15 am – From Here to Eternity – Best known for the scandalous rolling-in-the-surf Burt Lancaster-Deborah Kerr love scene, but there’s a lot more to this South Pacific military drama; enough to win Oscars for Donna Reed and a non-singing Frank Sinatra.
2:15 pm – Sergeant York – I haven’t seen this story of WWI pacifist-hero Alvin York, but one of my most trustworthy friends loves it, so I’m gonna check it out.
9:45 pm – The Great Escape – Highly enjoyable POW escape film, which largely plays like a heist film in reverse.

Friday 22nd

9:30 am – The Pride of the Yankees – Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig, of Gehrig’s disease. One of the better examples of the biopic genre.
10:45 pm – Manhattan – My favorite Woody Allen film! Might just be the Gershwin soundtrack, though.

Saturday 23rd

6:30 am – Shadow of a Doubt – Said to be Hitchcock’s favorite of his own films; could young Teresa Wright’s idolized uncle actually be the notorious Black Widow killer? We know the answer is yes, but Hitch makes us squirm like mad.
8:30 am – Notorious – Part love story, part espionage thriller, and all brilliant; probably the best of Hitchcock’s black & white period.
10:15 am – The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) – Lesser Hitchcock, to my mind, but still good, of course.
12:30 pm – North by Northwest – I actually just watched Notorious and North by Northwest back to back, and they’re essentially the same movie, except North by Northwest is funny. Heh.
3:00 pm – Psycho – I see more in this film every time I see it; don’t reduce it to the shower scene, because it’s SO much more than that.
5:00 pm – The Birds – For sheer intensity, not even Psycho beats The Birds. I seriously can never breathe for like the last five minutes.

Sunday 24th

8:00 am – Bachelor Mother – A little film, but one that I always enjoy a lot; David Niven mistakenly thinks working girl Ginger Rogers has a fatherless child, and all sorts of comedic (and tender) hijinks ensue.
2:00 pm – Oliver! – Oliver Twist is one of the few Dickens novels I think I might actually like to read someday, and it’s largely because I enjoy Oliver! so much.
4:45 am – Annie – I doubt anyone would rank Annie among the best ever musicals, but I had to point it out for one reason: it’s one of the few ways to see legendary Broadway performers Bernadette Peters and Ann Reinking up close. (For Reinking, also see All That Jazz.)

Monday 25th

9:00 am – Key Largo – Bogart and Bacall, together for the last time (on film, anyway), holding off gangsters and hurricanes in the Florida Keys. Great stuff.
12:45 pm – White Heat – Cagney owns the screen as psychotic robber Cody Jarrett, who only wants the best for his ma.
7:00 pm – Stagecoach – John Wayne came into his own as the Cisco Kid in John Ford’s cross-country western, which also features a brilliant performance by Claire Trevor.
8:45 pm – Only Angels Have Wings – It’s been too long since I’ve seen this one to remember much plotwise, so I’ll just throw out names: Howard Hawks, Cary Grant, Rita Hayworth.
11:00 pm – The Public Enemy – James Cagney’s star-making role.

Tuesday 26th

7:30 am – The Magnificent Ambersons – Orson Welles’ follow-up to Citizen Kane isn’t as virtuosic, but is still quite solid, retaining much of his Kane cast plus Anne Baxter.
11:00 pm – To Be or Not to Be – To my mind, one of the most brilliant comedy/dramas ever made; a Polish acting troupe finds themselves driven to extraordinary measures upon Hitler’s invasion. Farcical, tender, hilarious, and moving all at once.
12:45 am – Hamlet (1948) – Branagh’s been giving Olivier a run for his money in the “best Shakespeare adapter” category, especially on Henry V, but Olivier’s moody Hamlet still holds its own.

Wednesday 27th

11:30 am – Captain Blood – Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland are together for the first time in this boisterous pirate adventure film, second in quality only to Robin Hood among their ten films together.
9:30 pm – High Noon – Gary Cooper stands alone against a gang of outlaws, and Grace Kelly makes one of her earliest appearances.
11:00 pm – The Seven Samurai – Kurosawa’s greatest samurai film, and many would say one of the greatest films of all time.
2:30 pm – Rashomon – But I prefer this Kurosawa film, which changed filmmaking forever by presenting three eye-witness versions of a murder and refusing to choose which one is accurate.

Thursday 28th

8:15 am – Father of the Bride – The original Spencer Tracy one, that is, not the Steve Martin remake.
10:00 am – The Philadelphia Story – When you look up “classy comedy” in the dictionary, there’s a still of Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart from The Philadelphia Story.
7:00 pm – A Man for All Seasons – Haven’t seen this retelling of Sir Thomas More and his stance against Henry VIII, but I’ve always meant to.

Friday 29th

5:15 pm – 12 Angry Men – Minimalist filmmaking at its best: one room, twelve jurors, one verdict. Who knew twelve guys sitting around talking could be so riveting?

FB100: #96 – The Exterminating Angel

By

On January 28, 2008

In Film

This post is part of a project to watch the Film Bloggers’ 100 Favorite Non-English Films. See my progress here. Note: I have skipped #97 on the list, Satantango, because I have been unable to get it to watch and decided to move on. When I have the opportunity to see it, I will.

The Exterminating Angel

The Exterminating Angel
Mexico 1962; dir: Luis Buñuel
starring: Enrique Rambal, Lucy Gallardo, Claudio Brook
screened 1/9/08; VHS

“The best explanation of the film is that, from the standpoint of pure reason, there is no explanation.” – title card

Previous Viewing Experience: I have seen this once before, in June 2006.

Previous Reactions: The first time I saw this, I knew to expect something surreal and weird, because I’d already seen a couple of other Buñuel films; I got pretty much what I was expecting. While I found it a bit slow the first time through, I also found it compelling. I rated it Above Average then.

Brief Synopsis: A group of upperclass dinner guests find themselves unable to leave the drawing room after dinner, held there by an overwhelming apathy and inability to act. Meanwhile, the police and family members have gathered outside the house, unable to enter.

Response: I didn’t find it at all slow or repetitive this time. I was impressed by the strength of the plotting, especially since there’s really so little story to plot. It’s done with remarkable economy without sacrificing any depth, and the last sequence is the perfect cap off, bringing us full-circle and beyond. The film is a scathing attack on the privileged classes, really–a sort of counterpart to Buñuel’s later The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, except instead of a dinner party which can’t get started, The Exterminating Angel is about one that won’t end. I wasn’t as attuned to the surrealists’ hatred of the upperclass the first time I saw this, so I didn’t note with as much care the almost constant distinction being made between the upperclass guests and the servants, who all had an inexplicable desire to leave before the party started, and did so. Throughout the film, the guests make disparaging remarks about lower classes: “I think persons of the lower classes are less sensitive to pain. Have you ever seen a wounded bull? Absolutely numb.” Being confined in the drawing room for days and weeks, they experience what they imagine as the living conditions of the lower classes (though whether they realize the connection is unclear)–as the host of the party, one of the more level-headed in the group, puts it: “What I have hated since my youth, coarseness, violence, filth, are now our constant companions.”

It all becomes very Lord of the Flies-ish by the end, as they turn on each other. It’s much easier to blame someone else for unpleasant conditions rather than do something about it yourself. And this is, finally, their ultimately failure. They fail to act. They lack the willpower. And the most interesting thing is that they know they do! When Nobile, the host, says they need to work up a supreme amount of willpower and all leave the room together, rather than take his advice, they start blaming him for causing the whole problem by inviting them; eventually, they blame their absent families for not rescuing them. The other level-head, the doctor, at one point tells the now nearly barbaric guests that their behavior “is unworthy of us. Gentlemen, don’t forget your breeding.” But that’s the point. Their upperclass status isn’t going to help them in this situation, and it is in fact their apathetic, sophisticated, actionless aristocratic tendencies that threaten to destroy them.

(Since I’ve seen this before and remembered it pretty well, I opted not to include two responses; the response above can be considered a reflective response as well as an immediately-after-viewing response. I said my previous rating was Above Average; after this viewing, I re-evaulate that to Well Above Average. Give it a few more viewings, especially as I see more Bunuel films to add to the conversation, and it may quite easily move higher–especially if I can see a better print.)

Page 81 of 101

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén